Matthew Killeya: Hello and welcome to Strictly Geothermal, the official podcast of the National Geothermal Centre, a place where we give geothermal insights and opinion. I'm Matt Killeya I'm an entrepreneur and campaigner and lover of all things geothermal. Charlotte: And I'm Charlotte Adams, CEO of the National Geothermal Centre and hydrogeologist, so I'm a lover of rocks and water. Matthew Killeya: So in this podcast, we discuss all things geothermal and we're thinking in particular about the things that we can do in the UK. And it turns out there's quite a lot we can do in the UK. We're on our third episode now. Last time we had a brilliant conversation with Professor Jon Gluyas, ⁓ where we had so much fascinating detail about geothermal and why the UK is ripe for geothermal right now, the huge potential that it has. in terms of providing heat and power. So this time we're going to focus on ⁓ one aspect, which is on the UK oil and gas sector. We're going to explore how this sector can really help drive a geothermal revolution in the UK. And at the same time, explore whether a push into geothermal is a thing that can perhaps not save, but turn around what is a declining sector currently in the UK. Charlotte: Thank you. Matthew Killeya: And we've got another fabulous guest with us this time, haven't we Charlotte? Charlotte: We have indeed, so we're delighted to welcome Innes Auchterlonie to join us this morning. And he's one of the board members of the National Geothermal Centre. Innes' background is in software development and he has a global track record focusing on asset life extension and ⁓ engineering due diligence. So he has a very strong technical knowledge combined with business experience and strategic decision making. which allows him to come up with unique solutions to asset management. As I mentioned before, he's on the board of the National Geothermal Centre, but we can also say that Innes, along with Jon and a couple of others as well, was a key founder member of the National Geothermal Centre. I think I'll be correct in saying, Innes, that it was actually your idea in the first place. So have you to thank for our existence and for us all being here today. Innes: No, it's appreciated. don't think I can really take the credit. I did come up with the idea and I wrote the initial letter to government to say this should be a thing. But there was a lot of work that's gone in by an awful lot of people to bring it to this point. having an idea and writing a letter doesn't take a huge amount of effort. It's the effort of everyone. It's the efforts of everyone else that helped bring it into creation. ⁓ Charlotte: You Innes: No, it's appreciated, but I can't say too much credit. Charlotte: Well it's great that you had that idea ⁓ and obviously we'd like to find out a bit more about you and ⁓ you know the aspects related to the oil and gas sector and how they fit into the kind of new geothermal landscape that we're seeing emerge. So you've had a varied career and we've chatted about that ⁓ in the past, some really exciting things that you've done in the past, obviously starting out in oil and gas construction and project management. and you're managing director of Imrandd, which you founded 10 years ago, ⁓ which is a firm that uses data science and AI to engineering. And that was awarded as a supply chain company of the year in 2023. ⁓ From everything you've done, can you tell us about a career highlight and also tell us about the moment that geothermal first caught your imagination? Innes: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's been a few highlights in my career. As you said, it's been really varied. I spent the entirety of my career in oil and gas. I mean, when I was much, much younger, I had a brief stint as a circus performer. And the first time I performed in a big top was pretty exciting. That was a very long time ago. But more recently, it would probably be... winning the innovative supply chain company of the year award in 2023 was great because it validated our ideas. I'm an engineer. You mentioned my background in software development. I did study software development when I was much, younger, but realized at the time it wasn't for me. I'm dyslexic, so actually writing code at the time was really pretty difficult because compilers weren't particularly great. But applying software development and data science to engineering, ⁓ really does. What we were able to do with data science and with AI is just absolutely incredible. And it's the application of that I find really, really exciting. And it's what the company has become known for. It's really what we do. And it was our work in this area that helped us win the award in 2023. And so that was really high because it validated our ideas when we first started working, looking at, I mean, it's been pretty much the whole history of the company, but when we started looking at data science and then later AI, people were kind of looking at us as if we had two heads, whereas there's a real pool from the market now. But how their ideas validated was fantastic. Really good. And it was a good night. Charlotte: And in terms of your obviously you're involved with the National Geothermal Centre now, when did you first get interested in geothermal and thought yes this is something that I want to be part of? Innes: It goes back quite a few years now, mean, six years, five, six years ago. What I was really thinking about energy transition and where can somebody with a background like mine, is predominantly oil and gas, genuinely participate in the oil and gas transition? Where are our skills relevant? And it didn't have to be, you know, and it wasn't necessarily about thinking subsurface in the first instance. It was really thinking about our skill sets, was looking at Med Ocean data, looking at structures. It could have been looking at large scale project management, all different aspects, ⁓ the skills that you can find in the oil and gas industry. we were, myself and Chris Blake, who's the head of R&D at ⁓ Imrandd he and were sitting on a flight to Dubai ⁓ we were just discussing, ⁓ going back to first principles, how can we generate energy. ⁓ generate power, know, what energy sources are there that we can exploit. And we were discussing everything, know, ocean currents, all sorts, you know, just really going back to first principles as engineers. And we just kept coming back to geothermal as being, you know, for all the reasons that, you know, that you'll know it's, you know, it's constant, it's so readily available, you know, it's on demand. And It was these aspects that made it really attractive to us, but it also just tied in really, really well with the skill sets from the oil and gas industry. And so I just developed a deep, deep interest in it. And I'm terrible like this. I get an idea and I just got to run with it. So I just immediately started downloading lots of research papers and just doing a huge amount of reading on the ⁓ topic. Charlotte: . Innes: I came across a paper that Jon and Alison had written on the potential for geothermal from oil and gas reservoirs. that just got me, that kept the thinking going. And through mutual connections, I was connected with Jon, who was on your previous podcast. And we just really hit it off. And then between us, we started massing more and more people around us to really explore ideas about how we could take geothermal further in the UK and try and push the adoption of it as a real genuinely viable source of energy in the UK. ⁓ So really it's first principles. We really went back to first principles as an engineer. This is just too attractive and it's underutilized. Matthew Killeya: Brilliant, thank you Innes and welcome to the podcast. It's really interesting listening to that. I want to sort of take you back to sort of the start of your career. So you've been sort of in Aberdeen in oil and gas for more than 20 years. So if you think about when you started out, that I think peak production was 99, if I'm not mistaken for oil and gas. ⁓ Charlotte: Thank you. Matthew Killeya: in the North Sea. if we go back to that period, to when you started out, can you paint a picture for us of what was it like at Aberdeen? What was industry like at that sort of potentially peak period of this operation? Charlotte: Okay. Innes: Yeah, it's very different, very different. Much more cash available as you would expect for projects. ⁓ And a different mindset as well because everything's still in full swing. And that's clearly different now. There is no getting away from the fact that the industry is in decline. ⁓ Charlotte: . . Innes: I would argue that the decline doesn't have to be as rapid as it is and ⁓ that there is still opportunity. ⁓ And if we were to manage the transition properly, that opportunity should be more carefully managed than it has been. ⁓ And the decline that we're seeing now is in some ways slightly artificial. because it's not about the level of resource that is available, it's rather the conditions in which the industry is operating. ⁓ But nevertheless, is with any extractive resource, there is a natural decline and that's inevitable. And we all have to accept that that will be the case. ⁓ So now, we're talking a lot, 20 years ago, we're talking more about the development of new fields and the Charlotte: you Innes: ⁓ and still a degree of expansion. Now this is about managing the transition, managing the transition and thinking about what we can do with the resources that we've gathered over that time. So the great engineering knowledge that we have, the great capabilities that we've developed and how can we have a genuine and just transition. And to me, that's really important that this has to be a just transition. ⁓ Yeah, I know you guys are based in Durham. I was born in Fife, not that I really lived there for any length of time, but I've seen the effect of unmanaged transition from other energy sources with the decline of the coal industry and the effect that that can have on communities. This lasted, now we can still see it in the decline of a lot of mining towns. I mean, we to avoid that. We've got to stop that happening again. We've got to make sure that actually when we do transition, that we understand the impact of that. When we talk about energy transition, it sounds a little bit esoteric, that it's a nice technology shift. But actually what we're talking about is industrial transition. And industrial transition has big impacts on economies and communities. And we really need to bear that in mind. We've got to be really cognizant of that. Charlotte: . . Innes: and not have more left behind communities because of it. But actually be far more positive and think about how we, and plan better, and think about how we use these skills, these resources to best effect and make sure that nobody gets left behind and we get the best possible outcome from it. Charlotte: Yeah and I think my next question relates to that and your comment that the decline that is being observed doesn't need to be as rapid as it is and obviously the oil and gas sector has traditionally been a huge employer of skilled people. ⁓ I think the most recent OEUK report suggests there's about 150,000 people or so currently working in the sector at the moment. what has happened or is happening to those skilled workers? What are we seeing and why do you think that decline is maybe more rapid than it should be? Innes: ⁓ So what's happening, just the number of job losses in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire is pretty significant. You look at Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce figures for 2020 through to 2025, was 10,000 job losses. ⁓ Now that doesn't include people who retired or people just left their positions. This is people made redundant. Yeah, and that's a huge percentage of the population here. And that's just in Aberdeen and Shire That's not just talking about the numbers across the rest of the Northeast particularly, right down into Tyneside and other areas that are massively affected. But it really is. It's a huge number of people that in place. And this isn't really, it's not necessarily reflected in the job, those job losses aren't necessarily showing up in there. unemployment figures directly. You can see people being paid off, but you're not necessarily seeing them showing up in unemployment figures. That's because a lot of them are simply leaving the country. ⁓ If you've got transferable skills within the oil and gas, you'll leave. ⁓ If you have the opportunity to do so, not everybody does. But I was out in the Middle East recently and I was visiting Qatar Energy, ⁓ Dolphin, various operators out there. And what was really interesting to note was over 50 % of the engineers that I was talking to were British because they'd left the UK. And this is skills that are leaving. So we don't have the benefit of their contribution to the economy, of the tax that they generate. But eventually there will be a point where, as we see more and more of these job losses, these will translate through into unemployment figures as well. Charlotte: Okay. Innes: ⁓ But it does have a huge effect on the economy. And it's just such a waste of talent ⁓ for the country ⁓ to have people leaving to go and work for oil gas producers in the Middle East that we can then import ⁓ their LNG instead of produce our own gas. ⁓ Charlotte: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Innes: So why is ⁓ it, why do I say that declines artificially? ⁓ Unstable fiscal environment and ⁓ for a lot of the oil companies I think it's been, it's uncertainty. I've spoken to some CEOs who basically said, you know, that with the windfall tax that'd be, we'd be very happy to be, energy profits, they'd be very happy to pay it if it was on additional profit, but it was on everything. And what it meant was just uncertainty, so they couldn't release investment. Charlotte: Mm-hmm. Innes: ⁓ But the, so I do think the decline is faster than it needs to be. And this isn't to say that I'm in any way ⁓ not supportive of energy transition, clearly not. I wouldn't have been actively pursuing clean and alternative sources of energy if I didn't believe in the energy transition and being deeply committed to it. Charlotte: you Innes: And I think it's, we get to him just slightly. ⁓ Difficult conversations at times, think people's naturally assume that because you work in the oil and gas transition, work in the oil and gas industry, that you're a climate change denier and that you don't believe in energy transition. I don't know anybody that I work with that believes that, know, that it takes that position. Actually, everybody does want to see the transition work and see it happen, but wants to see it in a measured way with coherent energy policy. Charlotte: Yes. Innes: And so it does create this situation where we need to look to the skills of the people within the oil and gas industry. And not immediately write oil and gas professionals off as being people who wouldn't support transition or want to support clean technology. It's simply not true. People do want to support it. They want to play a part in it. They want to know what the role can be within it. And the reality is there are a lot of skills. There's a lot of skills, a lot of technology, a lot of knowledge that can transfer over. And do you want to be a part of it? We've got to manage it properly, so that we don't end up with a position where we simply just lose those skills. Or lose the people completely. Whereas, as I said, we've seen a lot of people simply leave the country, but actually manage this properly so that everyone can play a... Charlotte: Yeah. Yeah. Innes: and active and purposeful role in the transition. Matthew Killeya: Yeah, okay, so that's really interesting. think, I'm just thinking about the sort of scale of this. So if we go back 10, 15 years, we're talking 400,000 people or so working in industry. So obviously seeing a big drop in that period in terms of the total number. And from what you talked about there, ⁓ we've lost quite a lot of people to... Charlotte: Okay. Matthew Killeya: to overseas, so I guess people going to do oil and gas drilling in the Middle East and presumably in other places as well, ⁓ Texas and so on. So that's sort of drilling in particular and other things, but there's a sort of whole sort of supply chain industry, isn't there as well? Lots of other jobs I think people don't think of. So not just engineering, but things like construction, but... Charlotte: So, Matthew Killeya: you know, just the sort of safety management and the compliance and the supply chain stuff around just. Charlotte: Okay. Okay. Innes: you haven't worked in the industry, I'm not sure that people will understand the diversity. ⁓ We material scientists, ⁓ chemical you said, risk and compliance managers, ⁓ economists. The is incredible. Power generation and power ⁓ delivery. almost all oil and gas assets, but particularly offshore, generate their own power because they have to. And so we have a huge amount of experience in power generation, in large electrical loads. The skills are incredibly diverse, incredibly diverse. I mean, my background, is in large projects and construction, but I'm working in data science and artificial intelligence is my primary focus. So the skills in oil and gas industry are so diverse and so transferable, but with a lot of them very particularly applicable to geothermal development as well. Matthew Killeya: Yeah, so I suppose some of them could be picked up with the expansion in offshore wind and solar in terms of, I'm thinking the engineering and the construction and the safety stuff. But presumably some of them, like the drilling and the well completion, that's the kind of thing that we either lose or it's the sort of thing that really lends itself, presumably very well to geothermal. Innes: Very much so. But on offshore wind, there's quite a lot we need to learn from that. So absolutely should be in the mix. Viable source of energy, still room for expansion. But the economics of it aren't always being modeled well. You've seen that the latest licensing lines have very few people, much fewer companies. looking to take up those licenses. So things that still need to be worked out there, but we should do it. This isn't to say that this isn't viable. Absolutely we should get after this, but there have been mistakes made as well. And it's something that we need to make sure we don't do in geothermal and we do generally. I think it was around about 90 % of Capex spent in offshore wind went to companies out with the UK. So, even within, it's so. Charlotte: . Okay. Innes: Turbines weren't built here, blades weren't built here, structures weren't built here, moorings weren't built here, boats didn't come from here. And so actually the impact for jobs in the UK was pretty minimal for the amount of capital spent. There were some guidelines from suggested by government that in future rounds, 40 % of costs should go towards supporting local content. As a guideline, there's no commitment there. You don't have to commitment to it. You just got to show that that's something that you're trying to do. And I absolutely understand that these need to be cost competitive and that necessary. that maybe at the time there was a real need to develop these fields quickly and simply the supply chain didn't exist. ⁓ And so you can argue that these decisions were just necessary. ⁓ Charlotte: Okay. Okay. Matthew Killeya: Thank Innes: But that still remains, know, the actual economic benefit out with the production of power wasn't as great as it should be. And so again, that's something that we need to learn as we're developing Glenn from and make sure that actually we do create the biggest economic impact we can. Charlotte: Yeah. Matthew Killeya: previous podcasts about the sort of the amount of money we spent on sort of short-term fixes in terms of energy ⁓ and money that's just sort of literally spent and gone overseas. Just to sort of final question on scale, it's just the scale of the opportunity. So given what you've talked about, this sort of size of the oil and gas industry and the expertise and the supply chains, is that the real opportunity here in terms of us really being able to do geothermal homegrown? ⁓ Charlotte: . . Matthew Killeya: different in some ways to what you described in offshore wind. Innes: Yeah, I think it is. think there's a lot of expertise immediately and there's a lot of transferable engineering skills. We need to think about it completely differently. A lot of geothermal projects are not going to be the scale of our oil and gas development. I think there are only 180 offshore platforms left in the UK now. We'd be talking tens of thousands of geothermal projects, but much smaller. So we need to think about scale differently and how we... Charlotte: Right. Innes: And supply chains will need to reshape themselves to accommodate that. But I need to validate it, but I had heard that if we were drilling ⁓ at the same rate that for geothermal that Germany is, then we could keep every drill crew working and currently working in the UKCS busy for the next 10 years. So you would employ everybody. Charlotte: . . Innes: These are different rigs. This is a different technology. It's a different scale. Working on a very large offshore drill platform is very different to working with a land rig. ⁓ But still, are a lot of those skills could still transfer. We need the equipment here. Companies need to be able to invest as well to be able to see that happening. And they have to have surety to be able to do that. So at the moment, there are no large scale land rigs in the UK for these drill crews to operate. And we don't build them in the UK either. So the same problem has, we've got the same problems we just described with wind. The supply chain has to be ready to meet the demand. But we can do that and we can plan. The reality is the skills of the engineering companies here that can adapt to do this, but it needs planning. Charlotte: No. Innes: But they need surety as well if you're going to do it, if you're going to invest. So you need the political support, you need the policy. We understand the planning constraints, the insurance, to create the environment, ⁓ to allow supply chain companies to invest. Buying a land rig is not cheap. So you need to make sure that you're ⁓ confident that you're going to have enough drilling contracts to have a Charlotte: Hmm. Innes: decent return on investment for it. But it's doable. It's completely doable. Charlotte: Yeah. And thinking about, you know, kind of the energy crisis we find ourselves in now. And we talked about that in our last podcast a little. ⁓ But, every decade or so over the past 40 or 50 years, we've seen some form of energy crisis or other. And every time something happens, we then react. And you could argue we probably need to be a bit more proactive because it will keep happening and it seems to be happening. at increasingly shorter intervals than decades. ⁓ But in terms of the oil and gas industry and things I've seen out there in response to the current situation we find ourselves in with Iran, people are saying, you know, some politicians and things are saying there's arguments for resurrecting oil and gas drilling in the UK. I know that Jon has published previously on potential left within poorly developed and underdeveloped fields. What are your views on this? Do you think this is feasible and something we should be doing? Innes: Yes. So there's, it gets into, I suppose ultimately there's energy security and there's affordability. And again, this isn't about, There is often the thought that actually if you're supporting new drilling, that you're just trying to support the delay the transition. And that's not the case at all. It's about recognizing that ⁓ we still have a requirement for hydrocarbons at the moment. And we need to manage that transition from hydrocarbons over to ⁓ other clean sources of energy. ⁓ Clearly, I wouldn't have been as active as... ⁓ as I have been in trying to promote geothermal and other clean energy sources if I didn't deeply believe that. But there are some uncomfortable truths at the moment as well, where as I said, we're losing engineering skills to go over and work in the Middle East to work for LNG companies and oil companies simply to import their product. So we've lost the skills, we've lost the tax revenue. Charlotte: Mm. Innes: and we are exposing ourselves to global market fluctuations in price. so, I mean, this ties into, know, governments have created this uncapped liability for themselves with the energy price cap. And it was sent to consumers, you're going to pay no more than X. ⁓ But while we are still generating a lot of power. through hydrocarbons, which we have to move away from when we are successfully doing so as well. for a lot of high things like, there are a lot of industries that it's much harder to do that straight away. And they're still suffering from really high energy costs. If we're importing LNG, we're, bizarrely, we're importing 2 % of our LNG from Peru. Charlotte: Mm. Matthew Killeya: from energy costs. Innes: But anyway, ⁓ yeah, we are exposing ourselves to these ⁓ global ⁓ price fluctuations. there is this kind of something that needs to be talked about more. We keep talking about the fact that it doesn't matter if we produce our own oil and gas because actually oil and gas prices are decided on the global market. That is true for some of them. But the reality is that gas particularly is generally sold on long term supply contracts. Charlotte: Yeah. Okay. Innes: And if we are producing our own gas, then actually we can control prices. Governments can be part of the negotiations to buy that gas. And you can't put a cap on what government will be paying for that. The reality is as well, gas coming through a pipeline is a lot more environmentally friendly than gas that has to be compressed, put on a ship, sailed around the world, and then regasified from the liquid form. Charlotte: Yeah. Innes: So it's just consuming a whole lot of energy. So actually, if we want to the lowest carbon intensity, then we're better off producing it ourselves. ⁓ And again, I need to stress that this isn't about the unnaturally prolonging our dependence on hydrocarbons. It's accepting the fact that we have a requirement to use them for the moment. And if we're going to do that, we should try and do that ourselves. ⁓ Again, it's back to this point about what do you actually pay for your oil and gas as well? Most oil producing nations have something called a domestic market obligation, where actually if you have a license to produce hydrocarbons, you sell to the state first at an agreed price. ⁓ And then whatever is left in the negotiation, you can sell on the open market. ⁓ And that won't be attractive to all ⁓ hydrocarbon producers. Charlotte: Yeah. Innes: it would give surety of price and allow planning. And it's with that planning, with that ability to plan, you can think about the skills transition, you can think about energy transition, because you can plan. What I'm most about is just things going off a cliff edge, without the ability and that we lose the companies that... Charlotte: Yeah. Innes: people, the skills, the technology before we have a chance to use it purposefully in the transition. Matthew Killeya: Yeah, and so looking to the future, all that said, we know that production of oil and gas in the North Sea is down around 75 % since peak and about 90 % of the basin, the best estimate, has already been extracted. So clearly we need to look beyond it at the same time. So, and presumably that's why you've diversified yourself. So still in oil and gas, but also diversifying to geothermal. So I'm curious, what do you see as the main synergies between those two? in particular, what's the main thing, the one thing that the geothermal will offer in the transition that you've just talked about? Innes: I mean, what I would like to see is, personally, is that the main things I want to see most is jobs and economic impact. But you have to accept the fact that there is a difference as well when you're looking at extraction. The oil and gas, you're not producing energy. You're producing a commodity that produces energy when it's burned. And it's not its only use. And it's immensely tradable. And that's not true when you're producing power on local contracts. So you can't have the same. You can't have the same economic impact really. But it can supply a lot. It can create jobs and it will have an environmental impact, a positive environmental impact to see that transition. But if we are going to create jobs in this country as well, which is really a thing that I think we should all be most concerned about, actually continued economic stability. is lower energy prices. We have to lower energy prices. We have to. For industry and for our consumers. consumers are artificially protected from high energy prices by the energy price cap. We currently have uncapped liability for the government if your main sources of energy are still incredibly expensive. Charlotte: Yeah. Innes: So we have to bring down energy costs and we need to do that to make our industries more competitive and to stop governments just leeching cash. You know, to pay the difference, you know, when you're offering consumers a price cap but you haven't controlled what you pay as a government. That's capital that could otherwise be invested. Charlotte: Mm. Yeah. And in terms of who's going to do geothermal going forwards, you know, I can think of four or five companies that are active at the moment. And for example, Star Energy, had roots in oil and gas are doing geothermal. And we've talked to them about ways in which, you know, we could encourage others to do the same. From your point of view, you know, what's your view on the traditional oil and gas companies and their appetite for moving into geothermal or completely new opportunities being created? And what do you think are the enablers and the kind of barriers to this as well from your experience of people in the sector? Innes: So we haven't seen it too much in the UK, but a lot of the big oil and gas companies are interested in geothermal. I believe Chevron are actually doing quite a lot in the US, and they won't be the only ones. You've also seen the BP support for the project in Bishop Auckland as well, and drilling there. there is some interest. I think these are still commercial organizations, and they have to make. They have to make money. ⁓ And I think they know that they can take commercial opportunity, solid commercial opportunities from geothermal in principle. But they need some surety to really get them to get involved. And so it needs government to recognize geothermal in the same way that it's recognizing other ⁓ renewable energy sources. ⁓ We need the... Charlotte: Yeah. Yeah. Innes: the guidance around planning and consenting, and we need to create the environment to allow them to invest with some certainty. They are investing in geothermal, some of it in the UK, a lot more of it in the US, and they do see the potential. ⁓ But with some, it's tentative with a little bit of reticence at the moment, because they would need to see exactly how this fits into their Charlotte: Mm. Innes: business. And I think that's not clear. They know the skills are there. They have the subsurface expertise. They have a lot of the data that would allow this to happen as well. ⁓ The transferable data that would allow them to evaluate opportunities. Not completely, but there has been a lot of onshore data gathered across oil gas drilling in the UK that is available. ⁓ We can use techniques like Charlotte: Yeah. Innes: the use of physical and form neural nets and transfer learning to kind of fill in the gaps, you know, from the, you know, in the UK data from information that was gathered in other parts of Europe as well to take, you know, we can make that data available, you know, to encourage, know, encourage companies. But it's certainty. It's certainty around investment. ⁓ It's you, ⁓ think most companies don't understand that they can solve the technical challenges. That's not a problem for them. It's really not a problem. At the depths and temperatures that we're looking at, most oil and gas companies can do this, no problem at all. But they need to have the certainty around regulation in the fiscal environment that they're going to be operating in. Charlotte: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Matthew Killeya: And so thinking about companies moving more into geothermal Innes think, you as we've said before, your mind is sort of almost automatically drawn to thinking about construction and engineering and drilling. But I think your company is particularly interesting Imrandd because you're not looking at those things so much as thinking more about data and technology and innovation. It's a sort of a different part of the supply chain. Charlotte: Okay. Matthew Killeya: Just tell us a little bit about what you're up to at Imrandd and in relation to geothermal. Innes: So a lot of the things that we do are immediately transferable. when we looked at evaluating the So we gather, gather, essentially we gather huge amounts of data and we try and gather and we try and gain insight from that. And we look to ⁓ understand the completeness, the correctness, consistency of that data to create insight from it. And we gather data from all sorts of odd, fractured, difficult to use data sets. ⁓ But we have used this in geothermal. ⁓ So when Arup were looking at the size of the prize for geothermal in the UK and working with Newcastle University, the project had stalled a bit because there was a lot of great work going on, but actually trying to gather all the data from existing oil and gas assets, onshore oil and gas assets in the UK was proven to be really difficult, and to actually get them to gather all that data for analysis. And we were able to unstick that using our... know, data harvesting and data cleansing technology, we were able to unstick that in very short order, you know, to be able to help that move forward. And there are great skills within the company in terms of data visualization as well and data gathering. So we supported the project with one of our guys where he was... Charlotte: you Innes: ⁓ mapped the geothermal potential for the entire of the UK. we had all geological information, so worked with BGS and others to gather a heap of information so we could understand the geology of the whole of the UK and the land cover as well. So we would understand the planning constraints and worked with ⁓ Aberdeen Drilling School as well to look at and to be able to estimate the cost of drilling in any of these into any of these geologists to be able to access the flow and the heat that you would need. So you're able to say, well, we have a potential project here. What's the available heat? would be the cost of drilling? And you could quickly screen, do early stage project screening. And more recently, not directly in land, it's like people are involved with them and have been supporting, have been looking at filling in the gaps in geological knowledge in the UK by doing, by transfer learning, by taking much, much broader geological data sets for the rest of Europe and looking for commonality with geological formations in the UK and using combination of transfer learning and physics-informed neural nets to estimate the potential in these. Charlotte: Hmm. Innes: data sparse areas within the UK. So that's what the things that we have been doing. ⁓ But a lot of what we do as well within oil and gas is things like chemical management, know, and so wells need management, you you monitor fluids, you know, so I think we will look at the, you know, and with geothermal, you're looking at, you know, you've got a lot of fluids to manage, you know, but they come out from these wells that are all trying, you know, and these fluids are carried through. Yeah, pipe work. And so we understand, we study and we model degradation patterns ⁓ and the effects of these fluids on the materials that carry them. So we can understand potential failures, planning, cost control, all sorts. So it's directly, know, so even with a company that, such as ours, where you're looking at, you know, this industrial data analysis, the reality is it's applied, you know, it's applied analysis. As we've seen, have chemical engineers, material scientists, process engineers, huge number of skills that are just very, very well informed by data science. And we can take all of that immediately and transfer it over into geothermal. Charlotte: This is just making me think a little bit about the, there's obviously those transferable areas, but there's ⁓ also some quite key differences, which I've just kind of been thinking out in my own head. Probably not well formed thoughts at this stage, but just as a result of this conversation. But. Innes: I like off the cuff thoughts. know you'd call them. I think you remind me enough, know, I'm terrible. I constantly kind of gaze off at you. Matthew Killeya: Thank Charlotte: So I'll just put them out there and be... So I'll just put my ill-formed thoughts out there and let people kind of make their own judgment. But I'm just thinking, I think geothermal, there are those similarities, but then we need these kind of different approaches to prospecting because ⁓ like for oil and gas, you're finding a reservoir and you're not really worrying about who's going to use it because you're taking the stuff out of the ground and it's piped and distributed globally if necessary. But for geothermal, it's got to be kind of local and also it's non-consumptive as well. So it's, I mean, that's not really related to the prospecting side, but there are those key differences which link to the licensing and regulation as well. fact geothermal is not consumptive, but also this kind of more place-based approach for geothermal links with some work we've been doing looking at project archetypes. and looking at where you might do them on the top side. And that's what they did successfully in the Netherlands. I think when they embraced the fact that they wanted to upscale their uptake of geothermal heat, they kind of actually got the subsurface data they had and mapped it against where their heat demands were. And they found there was massive gaps. So I think that's something that we could learn from. ⁓ And the kind of next question, I suppose, builds on that by saying... the opportunities for technology and innovation development more generally in geothermal and looking at how we can use what we know from other sectors to kind of embrace those differences and build on it as well. Innes: Yeah, looking at what's been happening in the Netherlands, it's really good example. Charlotte: to us aren't they, in terms of their energy mix and the gas producers as well. Innes: Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ we're ⁓ looking at development geothermal in the Netherlands. ⁓ The two key things that I heard I think it was the energy minister speak about this, that helped the development was the availability of data. So you could screen projects really quickly. So as a government initiative, they made that. ⁓ geological information readily available. So understanding where the heat is and how easy is it to access. So that if you have a project, you can make that evaluation really, really quickly. ⁓ The other thing that they did was focused on rapid licensing. So that if you have a project, you don't get bound up in ⁓ years of red tape trying to get your project ⁓ approved, but have clear guidelines as to what it takes to be approved. ⁓ understanding, it's having that environment, that regulatory and fiscal environment where actually you know exactly what controls you've got to put in place and if you can put them in place you can get approved very quickly. So actually it was rapid development. So you identify your opportunity and you get moving really quickly and I think we can do that here. But it is different, it is very, very different to oil and gas because as you said it's non-consumptive and it's far less hazardous. Charlotte: . Innes: It's not without any kind of large scale engineering, it's not without risk. And it's always about control and management of risk. But it does present a whole heap of other, the differences are, yeah, it is very different. There is skills transfer, but. One of the things I'm really interested in is the, with geothermal, and one of the things I find really attractive about it is the potential for local and community involvement in energy projects. Because of the scale and because of where it can be. So as we were saying earlier, know, and gas is, know, big, you know, multi-million, into the hundreds of millions of billions for development, and it's always going to be corporate. Charlotte: . Innes: When you look at a lot of other energy projects, they take land Yeah, you can ⁓ some small scale solar development ⁓ people's houses, which is great. Absolutely. ⁓ not being dismissive of anything, but it's understanding the scale ⁓ each of them. ⁓ wind particularly takes ⁓ it takes space. ⁓ figure that I heard at the Royal Society meeting last year was that less than 0.25 % of energy projects in the UK could be considered local or community energy projects. That's pitifully low. And it's a stated aim of GB Energy to make sure that, I can't remember the exact figure, but I think it's round about, I'm not going to quote. A substantial amount of number of new energy projects should be Charlotte: Okay. Okay. Innes: local and community driven projects. And I think that's hugely important, especially if we're going to lower energy costs for consumers and communities and remove some of that burden. And geothermal is one of the few ways I think we can do that because actually the footprint is really small. ⁓ And actually you can, you're not talking about, again, it's avoiding left-behind communities. It's exactly what I was saying at the beginning about the transition generally. But, know, where we have seen the local and community energy projects, they've been on, you know, one of the Western Isles, remote parts of the Highlands, where the communities have been gifted land by a previous landowner. And really, out with these projects, there's nothing. There's very, very little. So if you're in an inner city, a council, what's your opportunity to participate in a local energy project? But even if it's, we often talk about rural energy projects because they're probably the easiest ones to... find the space for. I live in the country, I'm lucky enough to live in quite an attractive little village. There's a micro hydro scheme a few hundred meters from where I am and there are lot of wind turbines. Does the community participate in it? No, not at all. The landowners own all of these things. But we can see the potential for it because we have the space. But yeah, Geothermal will present that opportunity ⁓ for much, much... broader community involvement that I think is much harder to replicate with other sources. Matthew Killeya: Okay, so that's really interesting, the community involvement. I think sort of as we coming to the end of our conversation here and just pulling it all together in my mind, I'm thinking about the country and the government and what the government can do to make this happen. And it sort of strikes me that the government or we have two sort of two huge problems, well, more than two, but two in the context of this conversation. So one is around a sort of depleting energy source. And you've talked about the need for cheap energy, for growth and just for, you know, for people, for better lives. So we've got that depleting energy resource. And on the other hand, we have a whole industry, the oil and gas industry, which is dependent, has been dependent on that resource for jobs. And so it seems geothermal is offering huge potential. to solve both of these problems. And so... ⁓ Innes: Or at least contribute. least contribute. don't think it's, know, the, and because we've got to remember that we're not talking about the same things as well. As I said, you know, you know, you know, what you're producing with oil and gas is a commodity that can produce energy if it's burned and it has huge economic impact and is, and is, globally tradeable. ⁓ With all renewables, that's not what we're talking about. But we do, but it does have the opportunity, you know, to create positive impact. Matthew Killeya: So in terms of. Charlotte: Okay. Matthew Killeya: And so what would you say, what do you think the government, in terms of the role it can play, what would you say the main steps the government needs to take to help make that happen? Charlotte: Okay. Innes: ⁓ Straight off, it the same weighting within government policy as every other renewable energy source. Straight off, recognise it in the same way. When all government planning for the development of renewables give geothermal the same weighting as everything else. First step, just recognise it. Second would be create the regulatory environment to allow rapid licensing ⁓ and then next create the fiscal environment to allow investment. And really if we can focus on these three things, ⁓ we'll go a long, long way. ⁓ That would probably be my big asks. Sorry, just as I'm not being dismissive about the impact at all, clearly I massively believe in it. Charlotte: . . Innes: and that we need to, need, we, you know, it's just recognizing, it's just that recognition, you know, in the differences as well. And we need to be cognizant of the differences and the impact that it can make. You know, a lot of jobs could transfer over into geothermal. Could they all transfer over? No, but a lot of them could. You know, it's been realistic about what can be achieved. It can be a huge, you know, there is a huge potential. There is huge potential for the transfer over. But if we can create cheap, affordable energy, we can create other jobs as well. So people as they transfer over into other industries, those industries can be supported by this. It's all part of having coherent energy policy that will support industrial growth, which we need to do. And geothermal will play a really important part in that, and the oil and gas industry can play a really important part in the development of geothermal. Charlotte: . . Matthew Killeya: Innes, it's been wonderful and fascinating chatting to you. Thank you so much for joining us on Strictly Geothermal. Innes: It's been a pleasure. ⁓ You gave me the opportunity to talk and clearly I enjoy doing that. And it's on a topic that I feel really passionate about. So I'm delighted to join you and thanks for putting up with me. Charlotte: We can see how passionate you are about it and thanks from me as well. Innes: Great, thank you very much.